Great news!

    Dearest Friends ands family,
       We are so happy to announce that we are the proud parents of a bouncing baby (well 3 1/2 year old) boy, Chala John (CJ?) Isaiah Steimer.  Julie and Jacob traveled to Ethiopia for an August 14th court date. It was such a great visit! Jacob loved meeting his newest brother and discovering Ethiopia (a little side trip to Frankfort was worked in on a layover too).  We are so thankful that after so much anticipation the Judge declared our adoption FINAL! Hallelujah!  We still have to wait on some more paperwork stuff between the court and the US Embassy...but he will come home.  The next question is always, "when?" and, as always, we don't have a firm date. We are hoping late October or November (okay so we are hoping early to mid-October but a more realistic time frame is a little later than that.

     We have learned a lot about waiting in the past 3+years, but somehow it still isn't easy to wait these last several weeks. Also, we are aware that the day we so anticipate is also the day that the "real" work begins. Bringing a child home from a hard place means that bonding is something that has to be worked at.  It is not immediate. More waiting, I guess. Julie is taking the year off work to focus on this new nuclear family and all of its new needs.  Prayer is needed now as much as ever. Our prayer is that Chala will bond with our family. That he will learn to accept our love for him, that we would have genuine love for him, and he for us. It seems like after all of this waiting that of course we would all be in love with each other. But this is not always the case in every adoption. So, please pray. We do love Chala. We will love him through the ups and downs of his adjustment, but may God bless him and us with a deep and genuine love. May he be grafted into our family and know the depth of our love. It reminds me of how we are grafted into God's family and call Him "Abba Father", yet the understanding of His love for us is a gradual process. We still struggle with believing that He truly loves us in our yucky times. Don't misunderstand me, we are SUPER, SUPER excited to get him home and start pouring into his little, precious heart. I can't wait to hear his giggles and hold that little boy in long snuggles. We also recognize that we need the power of the Holy Spirit to bind us as a true family. So to that end, keep praying.

    The following is a "form"letter of sorts to help those of you close to us understand what our lives may look like when Chala first arrives home. We would love to have as many of you who are able  join us at the airport when we first arrive. We would love to share this special moment with you who have devoted so much to making this happen for us and who have supported us through so many ups and downs in this journey.  And then we may disappear for awhile.  But we will resurface and want to have y'all come hang out with us. Julie will probably be super starved for adult conversation ;).
   
      Thank you again so very much for your love and prayers. We feel so blessed to have you in our lives!

Love, Mark and Julie et al

First hug (since 2011)

Dear friends and family,

We are so thankful for the outpouring of love and support through this long and arduous adoption journey. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that all the paperwork, fundraising and waiting will have been the easy part in comparison to actually parenting our little man! As international adoption is not a common occurrence we thought it would be helpful to give you some information on what the next several months will look like for our family.

If you can put yourself in Chala's shoes for a minute you can imagine how difficult this transition will be for him. He is going with strange people to a new place with different smells, unknown foods, an unrecognizable language and a whole host of stimuli that he has never experienced before. He will be dealing with the pain and uncertainly of being taken from his home and his caregivers for the fourth time in his short life. We will be doing everything we can to ease this transition. This includes "cocooning" for several weeks after he arrives home. This means you won’t see us at church. We won’t be having people over or going out. Time for phone calls and other communication may be limited (although we will read all emails even if we can’t respond right away!) Our other kids will still be going to school and we will provide them opportunities to play at friend’s houses but we will try to keep things very low-key at home. If you come by to drop off a meal or for another reason please leave the kiddos at home or in the car. I know personally that this can be an inconvenience for families but it is important for Chala and our family and we really appreciate it.

Mark and I will be the only ones who hold or feed Chala for the first several weeks. Children who have spent time in an institutional setting often learn that any adult might be able to meet their needs. With so many different people who have cared for him, Chala has no framework to connect to us as his mommy and daddy. Frankly, he doesn’t really even know what that kind of relationship looks like. By having Mark and I be the sole ‘need-meeters’ he will begin to see that we are different than the many other caretakers who have come and gone in his life. Please know that we mean no offense if ask you to refrain from holding or hugging him or giving him a snack. These limitations are an important step in helping him to bond to us.

It is our desire to "share" Chala with you and hope to provide pictures and updates on facebook and our blog as we have time. We appreciate your prayers and thoughts for our family as we make this very dramatic transition. We know that God has led us this far and trust that he will see us through any difficulties that lie ahead.

In Christ,

Julie and Mark